


Interlude

by LadyYueh



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Doctor Who (2005), Supernatural
Genre: Bad Wolf, Community: xover_exchange, Gen, Supernatural Episode 07x02, The Key, phenomenal cosmic power
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-14
Updated: 2012-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-29 12:18:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/319817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyYueh/pseuds/LadyYueh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are more things in Purgatory than Leviathans and the souls of monsters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interlude

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tyleet27](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=tyleet27).



> For the 2011 xover_exchange. Prompt: Immortality

It really was a pain being a being of infinite cosmic power.

Anyone who said otherwise was an ignorant jackass.

It was also really annoying when people started opening holes in and out of freaking Purgatory.

She sighed and cursed her curiosity before making her way to the site of the most recent disturbance.

 _”Oooh! Shiny, glowy thing!”_ she thought with glee.

So sue her, she liked pretty things and there was a very big lack of those things in the non-space of horror and ickiness.

Meanwhile, the new, glowy thing was attracting attention. There were lots of nasty things in the dark void that liked new, shiny things that they could torture.

“Welp, time for our stunningly beautiful and awesomely powerful hero to save the damsel in distress!” Ages in Purgatory without much socialization that wasn’t ‘run away or destroy that thing that’s trying to catch and or kill you!’ had given her a tendency to self-narrate, as well as the endearing—she thought so, anyway—trait of talking to and answering herself. She was the nicest, most interesting person she knew, after all.

She stopped tamping down on her power, letting the dazzling verdant energy stun the encroaching masses of baddies with awe and surprise before zipping in to intercept and catch the tattered star of blazing white radiance.

“Peace out, bitches!” she shouted to the horde before blinking out with her prize.

\---

“I’ve never seen anything like you,” she told the shivering thing as she settled it down gently in her corner of the void.

It was true. For the most part, the void—or as she liked to call it: The Eternal Place of Absolute Suck—was like the universe’s trashcan-slash-prison. Crap that no one wanted found itself there and things—or Things—that were actively unwanted were tossed in and the door firmly shut and locked behind them. And she was unlucky enough to have been stuck in there with them for just about ever.

“Of course, it’s smart to throw things that can kill you into an almost impenetrable pocket of a place without temporal or spatial dimensions, except that’s it’s starting to get a little crowded in here and we are in the bits _between_ places—not that those morons out there or the nut jobs in here are smart enough to realize it—so that means that if something gets out it could go out and terrorize whole new parts of existence. Whoops. Tangent. Sorry. So, what are you again? And what’s your name? I don’t want to start calling you Glowy. It lacks something, ya know? I’m Dawn, by the way. Or rather, my current incarnation is Dawn and it’s a prettier name than Key.”

It didn’t answer but she wasn’t deterred. Kind of fascinated and a little worried, actually.

Glowy was pretty and looked a little sick. The first thing anyone with eyes would notice were the big honking array of wings that fluttered behind him weakly. They were bad ass and she was sure they could knock someone over if Glowy tried. She’d almost missed them in the dark of the void because they were black. That was until she’d been close enough to see the glossy swirl of colors, refractive and iridescent, that were brought out by his continuous light show.

Glowy was vaguely shaped, with limbs and stuff, because definition was blurred out by the shine of white-blue light that was all around and in him. Not to mention the ridiculously vivid blue searchlights he had for eyes. No pupils and no eyelid. Cool and freaky. The only problem she could see were the big splotches of sickly color that shifted under her sight.

“Dude, that’s gross! Did those things just expand? Oh, man. You’re not infected with a cosmic case of darkness or something are you?” She felt like wringing her hands or boiling water or something. Not that water existed in the void, but it seemed like the thing to do.

“This is _so_ not in my job description. I’m The Key, buddy; multi-universal, compound reality door opener. I open things, I don’t fix them!”

Glowy reached out to her with shaky limbs and a melodic voice that was ruined with pain and sorrow. “Leviathan—can’t. _Sorry_ ”

 _“I’m such a softie,”_ The Key thought grumpily.

“All right, buddy. Let’s get you to someone that can help,” she muttered as she grabbed onto an arm-like appendage and used her transport trick.

\---

“The things I do for a cute, glowy set of wings,” the Key griped to the semi-conscious damsel as she dragged it along.

“We’re almost there. I don’t know whether to be thankful or kind of scared. I haven’t seen Wolfie in awhile. She can be kind of scary, but that’s just ‘cause she can split you into your component atoms with a wave of her hand. Not that she’d need to wave her hand, but you get my point. Anyway, she has her good days and her bad days. And she can get kind of sad and emo because she misses the love of her life, which is a drag sometimes. I’d tell her to get over it, but I’ve never had someone to call the love of my life so I can’t really judge, can I?”

The golden glow was a fixture in the part of the void that was known as The Howling. Sometimes it was vivid and raging, mercilessly destroying anything that tried to encroach into its territory. Other times it was softer, warmer; enticing the unwary before giving them a kinder oblivion. At its center was its only inhabitant and one of the few friends The Key had.

The golden eyes that watched their approach flared brightly with power for a moment before it diminished, leaving an entity of boundless force wrapped in the guise of a young woman. “Dawn? What’s wrong?”

“Hey, Wolfie! I gotta live one here and it—he needs help,” Dawn chirped happily as green energy buzzed about her in response to her relief.

The Bad Wolf sighed, reminiscent of a big sister faced with a sibling that brought home a needy stray.

“Please?” Dawn wheedled.

The Bad Wolf enveloped Dawn’s foundling in a mass of power.

\---

Castiel felt no pain. The voices of the petty, grasping souls he’d consumed were gone.

That was an impossibility. The Leviathans had started to consume him in the places where the souls had made his grace weak with infection. Even as he’d been overpowered and expelled from his vessel and into the depths of Purgatory, he knew he wouldn’t survive much longer.

Had his Father saved him once again? After the blasphemies he had committed against Him and His creations?

“So, what’s his name?”

Who was that? Castiel couldn’t see, his vision blinded by a mass of power that ebbed away slowly.

“Hush, Dawn. He’s awake.”

Castiel’s vision was clear. Before him stood two creatures swathed in enough power to destroy him with a thought. And yet…they had healed him?

He struggled to remember what had happened while he was enduring the pain of his unraveling existence.

 _Peace out, bitches! **I’m Dawn, by the way…** I open things, I don’t fix them! **Wolfie—** she misses the love of her life..._

“You are Dawn. And Wolfie,” he said the name without a shade of humor, which made Dawn giggle.

Wolfie regarded Castiel with eyes full of golden galaxies, making the angel feel very small even in his true form.

“I am The Bad Wolf,” she said. “Call me Rose, if you like.”

“My apologies, Rose.” Castiel intoned gravely.

“And you are?” Dawn asked with bright curiosity.

“Castiel,” was all that he could say and did not feel worthy of even that. He folded his wings tightly against himself, a barrier against the horror of remembrance, of knowing how far he’d fallen.

“Are you also banished here to wait out the rest of your existence?” Castiel asked. Why else would two such beings be found in Purgatory?

Dawn shrugged. “Kind of? I mean, I was here first. It’s kind of my job to be here, but I can leave sometimes, in special circumstances. But even when I’m gone I’m here, ya know? And Rosie can go anywhere and any when she likes. She just enjoys the quiet, I think. And destroying those weird robot things when she’s in a bad mood.”

He buried himself in the cocoon of his wings and could not even be grateful for the freedom of no longer being bound by the restrictions of a vessel. “I betrayed my friends and unleashed a great horror upon the Earth.”

“You’re not the first.”

The words shook him out of his melancholy. The Bad Wolf’s power seemed absent, leaving only the presence of the flesh that housed her. She had kind eyes.

“You won’t be the last. Your friends miss you, Castiel. They would welcome you back, forgive you, and ask for your forgiveness in turn.” From her lips, it sounded like scripture, like a thing that would be and could not be altered.

Dawn shrugged when he looked at her. “Hey, she’s The Big Bad Wolf. She sees things. And she’s right. Baddies are always trying to take over the universe and stuff, but there are always people to stop them.”

“People die trying to stop them,” Castiel said in a low, mournful tone. He turned to Rose. “They think I’m dead?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Then I can no longer ruin their lives.”

Castiel turned his back and stared out into the nothingness.

Dawn joined him, her presence a vibrant distraction. “I’m used to brooding entities, mister. We’re immortal, we have time for your issues if you want to talk about them.”

Rose appeared on his other side, the fierce vortex of her existence no longer causing him as much concern as it should. “We can even talk about our own dramas if you like. Share and share alike, I suppose. S’too bad we can’t get drunk though.”

Castiel was beyond questioning the chances of being saved and cared for like a child by a pair of celestial entities powerful enough to make any of his siblings quail.

They were kind to him and he needed help unloading his burdens.

He chose a beginning and started, “I wanted to save them. They had been through so much and they deserved some measure of peace…”

He continued until he got to the end.

 **-END-**

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to viresse12 for her quick read through at the last minute. (As usual! Love ya, sweets!) Any mistakes and wacky off the wall crack can be blamed on me. And Dawn’s tendency to ramble is my fault too (mostly). This was the perfect release for my need to have Castiel receive some love and I hope it’s enjoyed.


End file.
